can you do any of the math here? supposedly this is going to be framed as kick-starting jobs and not risking what -- whatever recovery there has been to this point? i'm not following. >> it didn't help president hoover and it sure didn't help fdr when he tried the same thing in '37, 1937. it's a loser. no, i'm hearing that some people are saying that, well, this spending freeze wouldn't just exempt national security spending but would also have things like health care and stimulus. so we have, there are two real options i guess. one it's either just sort of empty rhetoric that's designed to appeal to i'm not sure who, maybe the teabaggers. i'm not sure. or it's just a really bad policy decision. neither of them i think acquit the administration very well and i wish this concept would never have come up because we're going to rise and fall as democrats in november by whether people have jobs or not. that should be the focus.

and a spending freeze does nothing to create jobs. >> is scott brown being positioned the way the first president bush talked about the iraqi republican guards that he's 80 foot tall and shoots bullets out his back side? >> you got to admit it was impressive how scott brown in the special election in massachusetts became both senate majority leader and president of the united states. i've never seen something like that. but i like to say that only democrats would consider themselves in the minority with 59 seats in the senate and only republicans would consider themselves the majority with 41. a sad state of affairs. >> great thanks for coming in on the breaking news. >> any time. thanks so much. >> that's "countdown" for this the 2,461st day since the previous president declared mission accomplished in iraq. one other late bit of news. bill o'reilly's lead story tonight was again bill o'reilly. i'm keith olbermann. good night. and good luck.

now to discuss more on the state of the union and that possible breaking news on blanche lincoln out of arkansas, here is rachel maddow. >> thank you. we begin with breaking news out of the white house. we have learned just this evening that president obama plans to propose a spending freeze during his state of the union address on wednesday. obama administration officials who briefed reporters on the plan today say the freeze would last for three years. it would not affect defense, veterans affairs, homeland security, or state department spending but it would affect everything else. the white house says it expects the three-year freeze to save $250 billion over the next decade. a senior administration official at one point confirming to reporters that once you factor in inflation what the president will be proposing is actually a reduction in government spending. you might recall that republican senator john mccain ran for and

lost the presidency on the idea of answering economic calamity with a spending freeze. since that's the kind of strategy that herbert hoover used in the '30s to make the depression great. conservatives like evan bayh of indiana have recently alternated between calling for a spending freeze and publicly crossing their fingers that the president would announce a spending freeze in the state of the union. >> but we can do something right here right now starting next week. the president can say in his state of the union address, i'm going to include in my budget a freeze on discretionary spending. i'm drawing the line in the sand. i'm willing to use my veto pen to enforce that. not ten months from now. not two years from now. but right now. >> do you think he'll do it? >> i think there is a fighting chance that he will. that's what i'm looking for. >> that's what i'm looking for. you know if you've ever taken economics it's usually on day two of like a 101 college econ

class where they teach you a spending freeze is not the way to bring the economy out of a downturn let alone a recession. one lesson from the japanese recession in the 1990s was that the government was not aggressive in spending enough for long enough and that's why it became japan's lost decade. instead of japan's lost couple of years. then of course there was the great american mistake of 1937 when as the u.s. was finally coming out of the depression in a burst of stupid hooverism the government stopped spending for recovery too soon and it put the economy right back in the drink. deficit spending is what governments do to get economies moving again. a spending freeze is like trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it. and yet that is exactly what the president is apparently going to propose doing this wednesday. joining us now is the vice president biden's chief economist and economic policy adviser who was not booked on this show to talk about this this evening but then this late

breaking news happened and i ruined your night. >> i'm happy to talk about whatever you like. >> all right. i appreciate it. i know this was a sort of a bait and switch on you. we didn't mean it. >> it is and it isn't. but go ahead. i'm going to point out how some of our announcements today contradict some of your concerns about the spending freeze. go ahead. >> let's go right at it. why call for a spending freeze in the middle of an economic downturn? that seems counterintuitive to say the least. >> first of all not in the middle because we're talking about a freeze that would take effect in 2011. the important thing rachel that your comments didn't get to is that we're not talking about an across-the-board freeze. that entitles this president to comb through the budget and find policies that help to create jobs and boost the middle class, like the policies we announced today which is what i was going to talk about anyway here, and to cut back on spending on the wasteful stuff, stuff that accumulates over the years, that

congress has a very hard time pulling back on, the lobbyists love, so we're talking about boosting the spending that helps the middle class pushing back on the special interests. so for example today we talked about a set of programs that will be in the state of the union that will be in this budget, the very budget we're talking about, programs that nearly double the child care tax credit for middle class families, cutting much higher into the middle class than the current policy, retirement security policies, policies that help students facing burdensome debt from college loans. policies that help with elder care. all of those are policies that can be boosted while this freeze is pulling back on some of the wasteful stuff that is nothing to do with jobs in the middle class. >> to be clear, what we're hearing tonight from washington is that this proposed spending freeze would be everything other

than defense, veterans affairs, homeland security, or state department spending and also entitlements. you're saying that's not accurate and there are whole other swaths of the budget the president is not dedicated to freezing. >> what i'm saying is that is an aggragate freeze but not across the board. let me explain. if you have an across-the-board freeze you say okay, folks. every agency, everything goes down by 3%. end of story. real simple. that's not what this is. some things will go down. some things will go up. more things will go down than will go up. that's how you achieve some of the deficit savings. but the fact is that we can get in there and target those parts of the budget for expansion just like the ones i mentioned. now, on the other -- there's also a bunch of emergency spending that's outside of this freeze. the recovery act will continue to create employment. that's one of the other things i wanted to talk to you about. i know you get this.

the recovery act saved or created 2 million jobs so far, ontrack to create or save another 1.5 million before it's done. that's going to be in effect of course the rest of this year and in 2011 as well. this freeze won't affect that at all. new jobs initiatives that the president will be outlining in the state of the union. those will also be accommodated under this program. so we're going to really shift our focus here to stuff that works and to help stabilize what is truly a long-term, unsustainable budget picture, by squeezing stuff that doesn't help. >> so cutting $250 billion out of the budget and at this point you're saying don't worry, it'll be all good cuts and the only stuff that will be left and increased is the stuff that creates jobs, it's hard to imagine that there is going to be a big enough impact on the deficit here to outweigh the overall effect of cutting government spending at a time when government spending is one of the true successes in why

we're turning around out of this recession. i mean you can brag on the stimulus and talk about how more of it is still due to go into effect. >> right. >> it seems like responsible economists right now and many of those polled by "usa today" are saying we need a second stimulus. >> right. >> you guys are not only not talking about a second stimulus you're talking about trying to cut $250 billion out of the budget. >> well first of all -- >> i have to tell you it sounds completely insane. >> $250 billion over ten years but by the way, i think it's wrong that we're not talking about additional programs to foster job growth. the president last month talked about new jobs initiatives in areas of clean energy investment, building on some of the successes of the recovery act that you mentioned but also considerable deep investments in clean energy, manufacturing for example, here in the united states, building the components of the new clean energy economy, education spending. the president talked about some

favorable tax policies for small businesses. that's very much part of this targeted jobs agenda that you'll hear more about on wednesday night and infrastructure spending and by the way to that the president attached a number $50 billion. so we're talking about some serious investments in job growth to boost the middle class and i would again remind you about a set of announcements the president and vice president made today in the area of child care, elder care, student lending, retirement security, all part of new initiatives or expanded initiatives that you'll hear going forward, totally consistent with the freeze we're talking about. >> all of which are very on message and will make a big difference to the working families that will benefit from those directly. they are relatively small, relative lly targeted programs. by saying there is going to be a discretionary freeze in discretionary spending going into effect in three years and we have to find all the spending we need as a government within these parameters, where, you

know, in real terms with inflation, overall spending is going to shrink. if responsible economists say you know what we need is a second stimulus this pronouncement tonight has made that impossible. if there needs to be some other major job creation effort, not the minor targeted problems that you're talking about there is no room for that. >> no, i disagree in the following sense. let me tell you and i work with christine romer and the president and vice president get this. there is going to be no stupid hooverism around here to usury think very apt term. spending programs in order to generate the kind of job growth we need to offset this impact of what was the deepest recession since the great depression generally will fall outside of this freeze. all of the programs i mentioned. these are, yes, you can say that some of the programs i mentioned regarding the middle class are relatively smaller than, say, a $787 billion stimulus package but when you start talking about $50 billion for infrastructure,

when you start talking about resources for small business lending, when you start talking about a significant investments in clean energy you're talking about real money and real jobs. and this president is just not going to give up on the urgency of delivering that for the american people while at the same time squeezing down on spending that does nothing to boost the middle class or create jobs that nobody has been able to do anything about and that's making this budget unsustainable. so i say stay tuned, rachel. >> i hear you and i hear your optimism here but you're trying to sell the virtues of government spending to rebuild the economy on a day that the white house has just announced a spending freeze. while there may be spending out there that is not good for the country that isn't creating jobs or doing what we need for the economy there is no reason why those things couldn't just be cut without an overall pledge to reduce the total amount of government spending, which i maintain still sounds like stupid hooverism. >> if everybody that we negotiated on these kinds of

issues with gets this the way you did, you probably would be right. but in fact when you get into the budget and i thought it would be easier than it was. maybe i was a little naive. there is a lobby behind every single dollar in the federal budget. if you don't believe that come sit in on a budget meeting. it is so difficult to surgically get rid of the wasteful stuff. you need a program just like this where the president is going to have to get the buy-in from the congress on this to comb through the budget and to finally do something about those programs that aren't addressing our key priorities. middle class families, job growth, wages, and incomes for the broad, working middle class. that's what we've got to be about. rachel if you find us cutting programs that boost those kinds of opportunities bring me in here and we'll talk about. >> well the pledge to defend defense, veterans, homeland security, and state and entitlements, target everything else for a freeze is going to make those fights a lot harder,

not easier in terms of making them on their substance because you've just made the competition that much tougher. i would say mr. bernstein, i mean, you are thought of as one of the progressives, one of the people progressives take heart ness the administration. a lot of people are very happy on the left when vice president biden asked you to be his chief economist and economic policy adviser. the white house was on the verge of really winning a lot of liberals over with taking on this fight with the banks and taking on wall street reform and taking on some of these other economic issues. really picking a fight with republicans on this. and then to have followed that up the next day, the next business day, by following evan bayh's idea to adopt john mccain's economic, main economic campaign promise for 2008 which he lost seems to me politically doesn't make any sense. >> well, folks will correct me if i'm wrong but my recollection is mccain's was an across-the-board freeze. remember ours is not an across-the-board freeze.

ours is a freeze that enables us with the congress to go through this president to go through the budget and believe me his economic team will be sitting right there with him and try to accomplish the goals that i mentioned. by the way, you talked about progressives and our role within the administration. i just want to bring you back to this event today with the vice president, the president, the middle class task force, for the last year our task force has had 11 meetings across this country where the vice president has heard from families about the budget difficulties that they face, paying for college, paying for child care, paying for elder care, saving for retirement. and today let's not let or forget this, rachel because i would especially like someone like you to help appreciate and amplify this point, let's not forget that today this president stepped in and did something that presidents haven't done for decades that this middle class squeeze has been forming and he did something about it. he helped to ease that squeeze with an extension of that child care tax credit that went from

capping out at $40,000 to up to $80,000 so that the max credit would now go to families much higher up in the income scale. for elder care, help to offset some of those costs. for kids paying burdensome debts on their student loans. that's the kind of targeted antisqueeze programs that we will, you'll hear about in this budget and are completely consistent with the message of jobs and middle class families. >> do you know that -- does the administration know i guess, is there an awareness that no matter how conservative you tack on some of the larger economic issues, trying to squeeze proof the middle class with those targeted things, but meanwhile taking what i hope you will concede is a big right turn with this pledge for an across-the-board or almost across-the-board spending freeze, you guys know you're not going to get any republican support, right? i mean this isn't, is this an effort to try to win republican votes for the president's economic agenda?

because they're not coming. >> look, cutting wasteful spending is not a big right turn. it's neither right nor left. it's good budgeting. >> but cutting is something the president pledged to do before this today. this is new. this is a spending freeze in the midst of an economic downturn. and maybe we'll be out of the economic downturn by then but pledging it now either sets you up to break that if we're still in the economic downturn or sets you up to put the country further into the drink than it already is in order to look conservative. >> it is important to remember that the freeze doesn't take hold until 2011 but that said, the fact that this is not an across-the-board freeze means that forget left and right. there are lobbyists supporting special interests throughout this budget that we can finally get in there and do something about. i just don't see why that's serving the american people poorly if and only if at the same time we're doing everything we can to deliver on jobs for the middle class. if we can do both of those, i would think that that would be

exactly where we want to be. >> jared bernstein is the chief economist and economic policy adviser for vice president joe biden. you are a good sport to go toe to toe with me on this. you haven't convince mead at all and i think you have a huge policy and political problem on your hands because of this but if all goes well i think you'll be here more trying to defend it. i appreciate your time. thank you. >> you're welcome. >> the democrats need pass health care reform now. it's not me talking but the guy who got barack obama elected. pass it now literally means now like tomorrow, like tomorrow morning maybe. see how that goes. stick around. powered by the wind on the plains. there's a hospital where technology has a healing touch. there's a factory giving old industries new life. and there's a train that got a whole city moving again. somewhere in america, the toughest questions are answered every day. because somewhere in america, more than sixty thousand people spend every day answering them. siemens. answers.

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on the same day the washington post published an op-ed for democrats. item number one pass health reform. now. quote, it's a good plan that's become a demonized caricature politically speaking. if we do not pass it the gop will continue attacking the plan as if we did anyway and voters will have no ability to measure the upside. if we do pass it dozens of protections and benefits will take effect this year only if the plan becomes law will the

american people see all the scary things sarah palin and others have predicted such as the so-called death panels were baseless. we own the bill and the health care votes. we need to get some of the upside. so in short, pass health care, democrats. duh. what's the alternative? work all year for it, promise it, campaign for it. get both houses of congress to vote for it. then don't do it? some democrats apparently think so. you can recognize them because they're the ones who have spent the last week in the fetal position because their super majority in the senate was reduced to merely an awesomely large majority. thanks to the massachusetts special election. if democrats do in fact decide they have the will to live they will take david plouffe's advice and pass health reform now. they've got two options to do so. they can either pass the senate bill through the house with fixes to the bill passed afterwards by reconciliation, reconciliation meaning it will take 50 votes not 60 or they can pass the fixes first with those 50 senate votes and then pass

the senate bill through the house afterwards. that's the choice. either way they can either have chocolate with peanut butter or peanut butter with their chocolate but either way that's what they've got to do. they can either do that or quit. those are the choices at this point. joining us now is republican strategist mark mckinnon who has advised the campaigns of john mccain and george w. bush. he is vice chairman of the public relations group public strategies and is also a contributor of course to the daily beast. thanks for being here. really appreciate it. >> you bet, rachel. thanks for having me on. >> i don't know how much of our previous segment you heard, but if did you hear me fighting with jared bernstein i wondered if it was music to your republican ears to hear liberals fighting with the white house over a spending freeze. >> i loved it. yeah, jared. keep at it. you're going the right direction. >> what do you think about my claim to him at the end of the rather chaotic interview in which i said, listen, no matter what you guys do republicans aren't going to support you even on a spending freeze. do you think that's fair? >> well, i think they will get

support for a spending freeze. that's a very conservative approach. it's something i like to see and a lot of my colleagues as well and middle america as well. the whole issue of david plouffe coming aboard, with shall and the media are fascinated by the personality and if president obama had already passed the health care reform and had an approval rating of 90% plouffe would still be brought in to help with the mid-term elections. axelrod is saying okay fly boy. time to come off the book tour and come back into the trenches. he is a good hand but he isn't going to fundamentally change what is going on. he isn't giving different advice than david axelrod or robert gibbs. those guys come from the same place. it's interesting while this washington game while it doesn't do anything different practically speaking inside the white house for the press and ultimately the public it resets the frame. in other words the press will writ something large into this motion that david plouffe has

come into the mix and things are going to change because he is there but that will help the obama administration and team obama because it resets the frame and the press sort of says okay. we'll allow you now sort of to wipe the slate clean and allow you a fresh start and everything that happens now will be ascribed i assure you in some way to david plouffe and it will be the plouffe effect of what's going on. >> we got the news from the white house or the strategic leaks from the white house about plouffe coming back this weekend and the two things that have happened thus far, well, i guess three things have happened thus far. we got plouffe's op-ed in "the washington post" where he said, you better pass health care, you dummies, and do it right away. we got the president's speech today with vice president biden on relatively small, middle class targeted economic initiatives that are going to be announced in the state of the union, then we got this bombshell spending freeze announcement tonight which is pretty much a scatter shot in terms of left/right. left/right political initiatives. if you want to put policies on a

left/right number line. do you think those are reflective of plouffe's influence already or is this another thing where we'll just tag everything with his name that happens from here on out? >> i think that's the case. i think a lot of this was prebaked and i'm sure plouffe was talking to everybody months ago anyway. i think he's always been part of the mix and the dialogue and the conference calls and phone calls late at night. but, you know, this is a classic time in most presidencies and it often happens after about a year when a lot of your capital is spent and the tough slogging of government begins. i feel badly for all of those people working hard in the white house because this is that time when they sort of are thinking oh, geez. thinking about the great job i left behind and that wonderful sunny place that i used to live in and where all my family and friends were and now the hard grind begins and it's not much fun. i mean, just government work is tough slogging. you got half the people telling you you should move left and the other half telling you to move to the center. i think it's going to be a very telling sign for the obama

presidency, though, because this is a time when he really does have to step forward and make it clear just what he does stand for and i think the options are pretty clear. you go to the left. you try and pass health care. you do some of those ideological things that you talked to your base about doing. and perhaps establish a legacy but maybe also a one-term presidency or you maybe take, you do some more practical things that are nonideological, move more to the center and perhaps enhance your chances for a second term in my opinion. >> that makes sense totally in the abstract. but if you think about president obama not passing health care reform in order to be politically practical? you got to admit that's sort of a joke. president obama not walking away from health care at this point is him saying, you know what? this whole first year, the whole, we've made it further than we have in 60 years and passed a bill through both the house and the senate. i don't feel like finishing? that can't possibly be a political asset no matter how conservative the decision gets labeled. >> no, i don't think that's an

option and i don't think under any scenario anybody would advise him to do that. you have to qualify and define what that means. there are the options you outlined or other options which is to say let's start and do this differently. let's passportability, preexisting conditions, let's not do it as an omnibus which seems to be what the american people are saying. i think there are different ways to skin that cat other than the ways you described. the problem with the way you described and the deals that were cut in nebraska and louisiana and with the labor unions is that the american public thinks whatever gets passed that way has been done with some special political deals which is not what they expected from the obama administration. >> trying to take it apart and doing it piece by piece at this point is a recipe for never doing it ever. the longer it takes the more likely it is never going to happen. the nebraska thing is out of the deal and the only thing which pulled positively is having a public option which keeps

getting derided as being the crazy lefty idea though most americans like it. they got to pass something. >> well, listen. i tell you the bottom line. the thing that pressures great presidents i think is the willingness to stand up and make very unpopular decisions. however that can be defined it means making a lot of people mad so whatever he does, if he does something great, it will probably make a lot of people mad. >> somebody will be mad. i agree with you, mark. mark mckinnon a former adviser to president george w. bush and senator john mccain. really great to have you back on the show, mark. always a pleasure. thanks for joining us. >> carry on regardless, rachel. >> okay. so tracy ullman is a very funny person. so it is with a mixture of fleshed embarrassment and touch of nausea we will tonight show you her new televised impersonation of me. but first, one more thing. on passing legislation like health reform against republican

opposition we thought we were maybe crazy or naive to ask publicly if something could be done to kill the filibuster now. it's being used in ways it was never used before and nothing is getting done by the party that has all the majorities in washington. turns out there is a growing crowd on the kill the filibuster band wagon. senator tom harkin of course has said he will introduce legislation to lower the number of senators needed to overcome a filibuster. after days of debate until it takes just 51 votes to break the minority strangle hold. his cosponsor in the legislation? senator joe lieberman. his remaining power is threat of joining the filibuster. senator debbie stabenow told us she would like to see the filibuster rules changed though she thinks it is hard to do so. senator menendez and senator casey have also said they don't like the current status of the filibuster and the president of the senate himself vice president joe biden has now voiced his frustration with the way the filibuster is being used as well. all of these folks expressing dismay with the current minority

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somewhere between creepy, unethical, and simply against the rules lies the latest gem from the republican national committee. in envelopes that say doorks not destroy, official document, and 2010 congressional district census, the republican national committee has mailed out fund raising surveys meant to look like the real u.s. census.

you might recall that filling out your u.s. census form is actually required by law. this is a great trick, right? make people think they're required by law to read and respond to questions like do you think the record trillion dollar federal deficit the democrats are creating with their out of control spending is going to have disastrous consequences for our nation? make people think they are required by law to read and respond to that. the fake census also includes a letter from rnc chair michael steele that says, quote, strengthening our party for the 2010 elections is going to take a massive grass roots effort all across america. that is why i have authorized a census, capital c, to be conducted of every congressional district in the country. nothing on this authorized capital c census that is being conducted says this is voluntary because it's not the real census. and the real census bureau spokesperson today said that he had received complaints from people who have received this mailing from the republican party and felt that it was

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in 2005 when they were still in the minority, democrats in the house pledged themselves to a new veterans bill of rights. in 2006, they won control of the house. and before the next election in 2008, they in fact passed the new g.i. bill. the biggest investment in veterans education since world war ii. the new gi bill passed both the house and the senate with big majorities and even though president george w. bush initially promised to veto it he did ultimately sign the new gi bill into law and it went into effect this summer. >> now with this policy we are making it clear that the united states of america must reward responsibility and not irresponsibili irresponsibility. with this policy we are letting those who have borne the heaviest burden lead us into the 21st century. >> something like the gi bill has a way of inspiring that kind of language and big picture

thinking. but you know it also is a really specific nuts and bolts policy that offers cash money benefits to real iraq and afghanistan veterans going to college. and the va for all of the high minded language about this appears to be blowing its implementation. the va admitting to the military times this weekend that in the last three months of last year almost 90% of the calls made by veterans to the va's gi bill call center never connected. almost 90% of the time callers either got a busy signal or a message that their call could not be completed. remember, these callers are veterans trying to get information about benefits that they are due, that they have earned, that we have promised them. the executive director of the nonpartisan iraq and afghanistan veterans of america told us today, quote, how can the va expect veterans to properly apply for the gi bill when nearly 90% of the calls to the gi bill hotline don't connect?

iava is obviously very concerned about this figure and number of people who have been left scrambling for answers. the va has so short staffed its gi bill call center that it's only open now monday through wednesday from 7:00 a.m. central time to 5:00 p.m. central time. and even then it's not getting 90% of the calls that are trying to connect. in fact, the va didn't even respond to our calls today for a comment from them on what the ha double hockey sticks is going on with them screwing up the gi bill and thereby screwing with our veterans. we'll keep calling i guess just like everybody else. next up people outside of south carolina now know two things about that state's lieutenant governor. andre bauer who is running to succeed appalachian trail hiker mark sanford. before friday if people knew anything about him it was even though he was mark sanford's lieutenant governor he didn't seem to like mark sanford all that much. you might remember him on this show talking all sorts of smack

about mr. sanford in the middle of the hiking the appalachian trail scandal. since friday there is now a second thing people outside of south carolina know about lieutenant governor bauer. no matter what else he does in his life and career he will always and forever more be the guy who when talking about government assistance said this. >> my grandmother was not a highly educated woman but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. you know why? because they breed. you're facilitating the problem. if you give an animal or a person ample food supply they will reproduce. especially ones that don't think too much further than that. and so what you've got to do is curtail that type of behavior. they don't know any better. i can show you a bar graph where free or reduced lunch has the worst test scores in the state of south carolina. you show me the school that has the highest free lunch and i'll show you the worst test scores,

folks. it's there, period. >> republican lieutenant governor bauer asking the people of south carolina to elect him governor and also saying that some of his constituents in south carolina are stray animals who need to be stopped from breeding by cutting off their food. today he said he is sorry but that is the kind of thing that is sort of hard to forget, isn't it? finally, there is important culinary and frankly foreign relations news tonight. for that we turn to the rachel maddow show's angus mcfarcer. >> hello, rachel. as your viewers surely know today is robert barnes day when we celebrate scotland's most illustrious poet. famous for such timeless classics as "a red rerksd rose." "the battle" i have to stop myself from breaking into tears from talking about it.

in scotland we celebrate this day with whiskey and poetry and a national dish. now, that's onion, oatmeal, salt mixed together in a sheep's waste for three delicious hours. americans haven't been able to make it because of the ridiculous ban on importing sheeps but the daily telegraph reports that the united states department of agriculture is considering lifting a ban put on haggis in 1989 to prevent mad cow disease. so next day, rachel, you come around and we'll have a dram and a big, slippery, steamy pile of the haggis. oh, the mouth waters doesn't it? and for dessert, we'll have a deep fried snickers bar. come over. ambrosia. i am inviting you now. >> thank you very much, angus. i will consult my physician and think about it.

appreciate it. >> it's a date. >> happy robert burns day everybody. he means it about the legalization of haggis you know. we'll be right back. the integrity of its design... or how it responds... in extreme situations? the deeper you look, the more you see the real differences. and the more you understand what it means to own a mercedes-benz. the c-class. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for special offers through mercedes-benz financial. ♪

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on the night that the taliban government in kabul fell in 2001, an 11-man unit of green

berets boarded blackhawk helicopters and flew into the south of afghanistan into the taliban heartland of kandahar. they had two missions. one, partner with the then unknown english speaking pashtun who had been living in exile, a man named hamid karzai to turn the pashtuns against the taliban and, two, beat the taliban in kandahar in their home base. did i mention we're only talking about 11 guys here? they are operational detachment alpha 574. these 11 green berets, 11 men did something in 2001 that tens of thousands of americans are trying to redo nine years later in 2010. their story and their success is told through first-hand accounts by these green berets and with the agreement of the families of those who did not survive in a remarkable new book called "the only thing worth dying for, how 11 green berets forged a new afghanistan."

earlier i sat down with the author and the army major who led this team of 11 green berets on this incredible mission. thank you for being here. major, let me start with you. the taliban stronghold of kandahar, the only thing that most americans knew about afghanistan at the time that you were there. what was the plan to beat them there and what eventually worked? snchts >> we worked with karzai to develop a plan to rally the pashtun tribal belt against the taliban. the taliban were a pashtun movement and the idea was to get the pashtun themselves to remove the taliban. karzai believed the taliban would be rejected by the pashtun, that they would fight with him against the taliban and that's what we were there to help him with to provide expertise, air support, and basically help him to carry out his vision. >> how the pashtun from the taliban in that situation? >> the taliban themselves did a

good job through their ruler. tyrannical rule, the horrible human rights violations occurring but the taliban were afraid to rise up. that's where karzai believed if he could get into the country, if he could work with us, show that there's u.s. support in his movement, as well as simply get all the tribal leaders talking to one another, that he'd be able to build enough credibility to get them to rise up, form a rebellion and overthrow the taliban. >> how long did it take? >> it took us about three weeks to do altogether. >> how many of you were there? >> 11 of us. >> eric, how did you find out about this group of green berets? why did you decide to tell their story and why did they decide to talk to you about it? >> well, i truly wanted to tell a story about the war. i realized -- we all have watched the greatest generation and how the veterans were dying from world war ii and their stories were dying. i wanted to do something to tell

the stories from our generation. by a strange set of quirky events i found out a sister of somebody that worked with the brother on that team and found out looking back in my records and had clipped articles at the time that we didn't really know howe hamid karzai came to power and it was years earlier. i found out captain emory, now major emory was working at west point and i sat in on his class. he said he'd be happy to talk to me but first get the blessings of the family members of the men who didn't survive. that's what i did. this was the starting point. >> of the 11, every single member of that group was either killed or wounded. >> yes. >> major, i know that you're active duty, so we have to keep that in mind in terms of asking to comment on political matters. i'm not asking you to weigh in on anything politically. eight years later, the mission in afghanistan is counter insurgency with a lot of

conventional forces and of course special operations forces as well. do you think there is an operational lesson for what you did, you and your 11 green berets did in terms of the larger mission of what america's trying to do in country right now? >> well, our mission centered on two big points. one was offering the people of afghanistan an alternative to taliban rule. and that was in the form of hamid karzai. and to this day he actually has a strong approval rating. one of the polls i saw recently that matched others was around 70% of the population approve. >> while also thinking the afghan government is also very broadly corrupt. those two numbers very high. >> that's one of the big difficulties is, on the one hand, they do support karzai but, on the other hand, they want to see change. but in 2001 and today, i mean, having a viable government that the people believe in is key. in the case of 2001, they didn't believe in the taliban. in the case of now, 2010, they

actually still do believe in the government to a degree. they at least believe in karzai and he has high approval ratings, which isn't the same as popularity. but they want to see the corruption at least diminished. it's so embedded that it's not realistic for the corruption to completely go away. it will probably take multiple generations. the other part that's critical over there is security. back in 2001, when we put the taliban on the run, there was a period there where the taliban were retreating and there was just a vacuum. karzai went into power. and that was the time when we really needed to start establishing security. and i think that we had sort of a false sense of security, pardon the pun, that came to haunt us as afghanistan was forced to be a built of a holding action as we moved on to iraq and had to put a lot of focus there on the security situation. so as we're looking at it now, we need to get the government

running properly. we need to build on the positive support of the government that is still there. and we need to get security established. >> eric, i know that in working on the book, you were able to meet with president karzai in 2008 -- was it 2008? >> 2008. >> to corroborate some of these green berets' accounts about what it had been like on the ground in terms of this initial foray back into afghanistan for him. in meeting with him as recently as 2008 and thinking about the mission that major amerine is describing, is he the guy? does he have to be the guy? does it have to be a leader that america believes in in order for there to be a government there that works and the afghan people will support? >> well, karzai, i think the reason why he rose in popularity as a diplomat at the time, was because he was a person who could bring these different factions together. and really, he's that same person still. >> he wouldn't be where he is with both the opportunities and the liabilities without the sacrifices of you and your green

berets. major jason amerine, eric blehm, the author of "the only thing worth dying for." thank you very much. appreciate it to both of you. i e to make my website... five months ago. we are building a website by ourselves. announcer: there's an easier way. create your own small-business site with intuit websites. just choose a style that fits your business and customize, publish and get found in three easy steps. sweet. all from just $4.99 a month, get a 30-day free trial at intuit.com. we decide to turn in early. we just know. announcer: finding the moment that's right for you both can take some time. that's why cialis gives men with erectile dysfunction options: 36-hour cialis or cialis for daily use. cialis for daily use is a clinically proven low-dose tablet you take every day, so you can be ready anytime the moment is right.

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you look beautiful tonight. allow me. it's tough to reach that five servings a day if you don't always like the taste of vegetables. i'll be right back. ok. good thing v8 v-fusion juice gives you a serving of vegetables hidden by a serving of fruit.